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There’s barely a shred of light coming through the windowless cabin. Dean can only see ‘cause whoever built this did a shit job, the rough wood planks are laid with gaps between ‘em. Sam’s groaning like a stomachache from hell, struggling in the chair Dean’s tied him to, right in the middle of a blood red devil’s trap.
Dean grasps his knife, the demon killing knife - Ruby’s knife, he thinks with a scowl. Real smart of Sam to trust her, now she’d sicced one of her buddies on him.
“Get the fuck out of my brother before I start slicing.”
Sam, or not-Sam, stops struggling. It looks at Dean with cold, pitch-black eyes, a smile playing on its lips. “You won’t.”
“Try me. I’ll take him without an arm, I won’t take you any way but dead. You do the math.”
It looks at him in that detached way non-human things do. Like it’s above him. And it laughs. “Oh, Dean. You’re being so strong for him,” It’s fucking cooing at him. “He likes that about you, you know.”
“Eat me.”
“Aw, come on. Don’t you wanna know what’s up here? I can see everything in Sammy’s rotten little melon.”
Dean can’t look at it. He can’t watch Sam’s eyes pool with inky black, can’t stand hearing this…thing speak with his voice. The tone, inflection, phrasing, is all wrong. It’s not Sam.
He won’t talk to it, and he sure as hell won’t let it get to him.
“Dean, please,” it says, mock sincerity sickly-sweet in its voice. “Look at me.”
“Don’t pretend to be him.” Dean doesn’t look up.
It sighs, deep and dramatic, leaning back in the old wooden chair. “I’ve got his memories. It’s sweet, little Sammy clutching the back of your jacket. The world is so scary, but his big brother’s gonna keep him safe. Isn’t that right?”
A million images flash through Dean’s mind. Sam gets too tall to hide behind his knees and too old to stay away from the hunt. Soon it’s wolf scratches, bullet wounds, Dad’s hunting buddies talking to him like he isn’t a kid. It’s scooping up Sam from Stanford once he’s finally escaped, clutching his dead body in the middle of nowhere. Yellow eyes. This creature takes a nerve and pulls it taut.
“Fuck you.” Dean spits.
“He’s calling out for you in here, you know. All the things you’ve said and done, and he still trusts you. Whew,” it whistles. “You must’ve done a number on him.”
Dean doesn’t want to think about it, the fuzzy boundaries, the goading and guilting. Leveraging his care for Sam, his anger, tripping a young boy over his lines like a schoolyard bully. There’s a demon presently in Sam that he should be getting out, but it’s got a talon in his brain and it’s clinging hard.
Dean used to push Sam as far as he could without it “counting,” in his own mind. Biting a chubby finger under the guise of playing, chasing Sam until he got hot enough to strip, handling his injuries with gentle, tender, slow hands. A younger Dean had a hell of a lot of nerve, always more interested in chasing that closeness than worrying about the consequences. He’d decked Sam across the face once, felt the hot blood on his fist, and almost pressed a kiss to Sam’s swollen lips. His need for Sam is like that, to shatter him and piece him back together.
Sam’s face goes vacant as the thing retreats a little, sorting through his brother’s memories, getting its demon stain all over the rolodex. Sam’s eyes fill with black again, and it speaks, mocking as ever. “Gosh, bang-up job raising this one. First smoke at thirteen? You’re a class act, Dean-o.”
Dean remembers that. He was seventeen at the time, and he’d made a habit of swiping packs from victims’ houses. The pack he’d been working through when Sam found him was Natives, they settled in his lungs like sawdust and tasted worse than they felt. Sam usually just sat next to him, but that day, he’d offered Sam one.
‘No thanks.’
‘Aw, come on Sammy. It’s baby stuff next to the painkillers.’
‘Those aren’t on fire.’
Dean remembers sighing, holding his hand aloft in the air. ‘Well,’ he’d said. ‘If you’re gonna be a pussy about it, open up.’
He’d gotten close, close enough to feel the heat emanating from Sam’s skin. He’d pursed his lips in an ‘o’ and blown smoke into Sam’s waiting mouth. He remembered thinking that a gust of wind, an involuntary twitch, an infinitesimal stumble could make this into something else. Something that counted.
And then Sam had damn near hacked up a lung.
“Very responsible,” it drawls. “He thinks about that all the time. He’s jerked off to it.”
Dean looks at it, for a moment, almost looks it in the eyes. “You’re a real creep.”
“I’m a neutral party to your creep-fest, buddy. Let’s be real, you’ve been praying to God for this. Oh, if only little Sammy wanted all the sick things that you do.” Dean hates its smile. It’s using Sam, twisting his face into a sneer that the real Sam would never express. “You wanted to fuck your little brother as soon as you knew what that meant. That’s not the kind of wish God grants.”
Dean grimaces, voice raising. “You shut your fucking mouth.”
“Sammy heard you, Dean. Through the walls, in the bathroom. He was confused at first, too little to know what Dean was getting up to. Then scared, but you fixed that right up, didn’t you? Now he thinks you must love him, to care so much.” It mocks Dean openly. “To care enough to spare a load. Touching.”
He pulls the knife back, ready to lunge over the symbol painted on the floor. “What’s your game here?”
“It’s just insurance, while I’m rooming with Sam. Making sure I’ll see you both downstairs. It’s fucking sick in here, all the things he wants you to do to him; I’ve got a comfy spot in hell for the two of you.”
Just then its face changes. The relaxed, controlled grin is gone. In its place there’s struggle, a pained grasp on one’s own facial muscles and the brief flash of eyes back to their natural green. “Dean! It’s a demon, it’s provoking you, don’t listen to it!”
“Sammy!” Dean’s chest releases tension, if only for a moment.
“Demons lie. Demons lie.” The repetition makes Sam sound unconfident. “Demons lie.” And the third one seals his coffin.
Dean can read Sam forwards, backwards, upside-down and in braille. He knows when Sam’s really excited or just being polite, when he’s really angry or putting on an intimidating act. And he knows from Sam’s wavering eyes, the twitch of a nostril, the slightly stiff set of his lips… everything the demon says is true.
The voice is back, like an alien doing its best Sam impression. “Aww, would you look at him fight. Isn’t that precious?”
Dean holds his- Ruby’s stupid knife to one of Sam’s legs. Non-fatal injuries are the goal. He’s never liked people picking on Sam; not at new schools, not at bars, and definitely not from inside his body. Anyone but him, he concedes.
Dean’s had enough. “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus,”
The demon howls, thrashing its head around. “You’re the reason he’s like this!”
Dean knows what it’s talking about. Blame the demon blood, blame the demon girl, but they wouldn’t exist if Dean had left well enough alone. He grits his teeth. “...omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica.”
It’s growing increasingly irate, growling in its hold, a smoky apparition flashing across Sam’s face. “What if I hurt him? You take me out and Sammy dies, is that what you want? Are the angels gonna bail you out again?”
“Fuck you. Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine. Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire te rogamus, audi nos.”
Black smoke wisps through Sam’s mouth as his lips stretch open, unhinging at the jaw.
“Benedictus deus. Gloria patri!” Dean finishes the exorcism and something gasps, the demonic smoke rushing from Sam’s body, pulling him upwards with its force. Once it’s gone, he slumps down, like a puppet with its strings cut.
“Sammy,” Dean breathes, untying the ropes that hold his brother to the chair. “Sam, look at me, please.”
Sam looks up at him and he looks hurt. His eyes are tired, held down by dark circles, seemingly on the verge of tears. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Dean can’t blame him.
Sam’s dirty, scraped up his limbs, hair matted with sweat. His clothes are wrinkled where the restraints held them. Dean knows possession is terrifying, violating, even painful.
“Dean, it said a lot of shit, a lot of wild shit-”
Dean reaches forward and holds Sam’s face in his hands. It’s sharp and square, not like when Dean held a child’s soft cheeks, but it’s unmistakably Sam. His eyes, his nose, some things haven’t changed. The creases of his dimples are faintly visible in the low light, not nearly as much as they would be if Sam was smiling. “I know you, Sam. You can’t lie to me.”
Sam doesn’t say anything. And Dean kisses him.
Sam reaches for his hair, grasping him tight. Dean tastes blood in Sam’s mouth, salty with a metallic edge, all underlied with old tobacco. It’s a little like licking a serial killer’s ashtray, but it’s also electric, to feel Sam’s lips, alive, against his own.
They don’t separate as Sam stands up, his hands trailing down Dean’s neck, grabbing at his collar. It’s frantic, the way Sam presses him to the cabin walls. The untreated wood prickles against Dean’s back, leaving splinters in the cotton of his shirt.
Dean’s want is an enduring, sick creature he’s nursed from childhood, growing up alongside Sam. It wears many faces, with rows upon rows of pointed teeth. He’s been feeding it scraps. Sam gives it a meal.
Dean’s hands press like bandages over scraped knees. Breathing heavy against Sam’s face is overwhelming, cleaning out a bullet wound with Dad’s whiskey. This is a long time coming, a tower slowly built up with blankets at the bottom and boxes of ammo on top. Sam’s hips rock against his and the desire is potent, a crackling wave up Dean’s body.
Sam’s skin is rough and dirty, his hair is almost sticky, and Dean feels under his shirt. He can’t remember a time before this pseudo-religious urge to devote himself, a time he thought anything was more beautiful than his pain-in-the-ass little brother.
They fight like wild beasts and love like knives through ribs, shirts falling to the dirty floor. Sam’s shiny with sweat and his nipples stiffen in the cold air. Dean can’t help but press his lips to Sam’s neck, to his shoulder, between his collarbones; he’s making up for every droplet he’d ever let fall to the floor instead of catching it on his tongue.
Sam breathes ragged, more weight to it than simple exhaustion, and grinds his hard dick against Dean’s, whispers Dean’s name. The grip on Dean’s waist becomes Sam’s arms wrapped tight, he’s anchoring himself.
“Dean…” Sam starts, chasing the friction in his jeans. “I need you to trust me.”
Dean sighs, grabs Sam by the ass to pull him closer. “I’m sorry…” He’s twitching against his fly, red-hot relief welling up between his thighs. “I can’t.”
“I’m not a monster,” Sam draws the words quiet through a moan, and Dean buries his head in the crook of his neck.
“I know,” he says, and he means it. Sam’s a firecracker, angry and excited and righteous and good. He doesn’t make sadistic choices, hell, he’s gentler than Dean is. But Sam’s need to be heard, to help, to feel strong, it’s always been a double edged sword. And now there’s a demon with her hand on the hilt.
Maybe it’s the lack of blood to his brain, but he’s not stinging with betrayal right this second. Fear, maybe; distrust, certainly. But Sam holds Dean like he’s all he’s got and whines so sweet in his ear, and the thing he feels most for Sam is love.
Clawing, hungry, possessive; flowing, warm, gentle, it’s a knot he can never untangle, only adding more loops and rows, wrapping it tighter and tighter until it kills him.
He comes in his jeans with a cry of Sam’s name, feeling every bit the clumsy teenager he’d been before everything. Back when things felt like they’d be okay.
With a hand to Sam’s crotch, he helps him over the edge as well, and catches him when his possession-worn body goes limp.